1. Field
The following description relates to a mobile communication terminal to provide a widget expansion function using a message communication, and an operation method of the mobile communication terminal.
2.Description of Related Art
Currently, with rapid development of a mobile communication terminal such as a smart phone and the like, an activation of a local service may be expected.
FIG. 1 illustrates a communication system 100 using an existing mobile communication terminal 110.
The communication system 100 may provide a local service such as, for example, a guide service, a reservation service, and a commercial transaction service, using a mobile phone based on user information. The user information may be a provider location in a predetermined region such as, for example, a school, a hospital, a shopping mall, a theme park, a gasoline station, and the like.
For the local service, the mobile communication terminal 110 may download a variety of mobile applications from a local service server 120 operated by a provider, and provide a service.
A downloadable mobile application may be classified into a native application scheme and a mobile web scheme. The native application may employ application programming interface (API) supported by a specific platform. The native application scheme may readily and quickly perform a system optimization including a user interface and support offline connection. The mobile web scheme may support a variety of devices in a multi-platform. Accordingly, an appropriate selection of the native application or mobile web scheme may be used depending on a necessity.
In the case of using the local service, when a service is provided using mobile web widgets, a user may readily access the service and use the service without being aware of a server address.
A drawback of an existing web widget is that it may not control a quick screen switch and hardware, like a game, and may be available only when a network is connected. The web scheme may create an application using a script including a Hypertext Markup Language (HTML), cascading style sheets (CSS), and JavaScript.
A manufacturing company provides a device API suggested in a standard interface, and a browser or a widget engine expands a function of the device API using a plug-in. When the function is expanded, the device API may be used. A standard JavaScript API may not directly control hardware and thus, the function of the browser or the widget engine may be expanded by defining a new JavaScript API using a native language such as, for example, C/C++.
With codes defined using the native language, a widget's JavaScript may be expanded in the widget engine using a static scheme and a plug-in scheme. In the case of a variety of mobile devices using the same platform, a device function may be used in combination with a plug-in. When the plug-in scheme is employed by a JavaScript API expanded in the browser or the widget engine, the device API may be directly called using a combined native code.
FIG. 2 illustrates a process of calling an existing device API.
An expansion of an additional function of a widget in an existing mobile communication terminal 200 will be described with reference to FIG. 2.
The mobile communication terminal 200 using an existing web scheme may use a function expansion module for each widget W1, W2, and W3 210 using a widget platform 220.
Since an API library used for widgets W1, W2, and W3 210 is called from a device API 230 via a web plug-in 221, a development may be complex and a security may be vulnerable. In addition, since each of the widgets W1, W2, and W3 210 may not use a native language, an error occurrence probability may be significantly high.